Will tropical coral reefs be the first ecosystem to be eliminated by climate change?

Friday, November 25, 2005

Glimmer of hope?

From Permuteran, the location of the Biorock workshop, where the internet is as slow as the pace of life in the Balinese villages, I read about "new work" from Ray Berkelmans and colleagues at AIMS reportedly showing that corals may be more adaptable to climate change than previously thought.

Thermally tolerant algae may allow at least some species to adapt to an average 1 to 3 C temperature rise on the Great Barrier Reef, it's thought (see here for more).

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"Mike", the world's first hydrogen bomb, vaporised Elugelap island and other parts of the Enewetak atoll on 1 November 1952. In the half century or so since then humans have destroyed around a quarter - some say a half - of all tropical coral reefs, which are one the world's richest and oldest ecosystems and provide vital benefits in over 100 countries. Will the rest be gone within another fifty years - or less? So what?

Please note that this blog is now pretty much 'on hold', with only occasional updates since January 2008. For notes on the Anthropocene extinction and what comes next see The Book of Barely Imagined Beings.